Hosea 11:1-11 and Psalm 107:1-9, 43
or
Ecclesiastes 1:2, 12-14; 2:18-23 and Psalm 49:1-12
Colossians 3:1-11
Luke 12:13-21
There’s a story about some kids who broke into a giant department store one night (the kind of department store that we don’t have anywhere in this country - it was one where they sell everything from apples to limousines), but they didn’t steal anything.
All that they did was switch some price tags around…
They took the price off some underpants - and attached it to a 74cm flat screen television. The price from the television screen they attach to a chocolate bar; the price from a chocolate bar they attached to a state of the art lap top computer… etcetera.
They snuck out of the store and returned in the morning to watch what happened.
There was chaos as customers fought over the cheaply priced lap-top computer and marvelled at the overpriced chocolate bar…
* * *
Sometimes in our world, it seems as if someone has switched the price tags around. We have made idols out of things that aren’t very important or valuable, becoming willing to do anything to get them and keep them and we’ve forgotten the value of things too which we could never attach a price tag. Some things we will have at too great a cost - and some things we cheapen by our unwillingness to work for them even in spite of difficulty.
* * *
In Luke’s gospel Jesus tells a parable about a rich fool; a parable prompted by the request of someone in a crowd:
The man’s request is quite simple: “Tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me…”
The standard practice of the day was quite clear - the eldest son would normally receive double what any of the other sons would receive; that this issue was being raised meant that someone was cheating someone out of money.
That’s all we hear about the person in the crowd… a dispute between him and his brother about wealth, about money…
I don’t think tension over money is foreign to any of us - tension about who gets paid more for what at work. Tension between siblings about who inherits what, tensions within marriages about how money is managed and spent... Often we just don’t talk about it because it could too quickly spark off a fight.
Money has a strange way of driving a wedge between people.
* * *
How many times have we heard of churches splitting apart over money?
At one of the churches I once worked at - the treasurer was a wealthy man, a well respected figure in business, accustomed to wage negotiations… all those difficult and stressful things people do; but he was never so nervous as when he presented the church’s budget to the church council…
Money - it can so quickly tear us apart.
Jesus warns the crowd: “Guard yourselves against greed. One’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.”
* * *
Jesus then tells the story about a rich man whose land produced abundantly… And so he built really big barns in which to keep his wealth.
This kind of rich man would probably have been quite familiar to the people listening to Jesus. He was teaching in a rural area, probably speaking to poor people who worked the farms of rich land owners for a meagre reward - many of these farm workers were probably enslaved to rich land owners because of their debts.
The people listening would have deeply resented this sort of person; they had probably once owned the land on which they worked for a living. It would have been taken away from them by conquering powers; they would watch as the land which was rightfully theirs produced crops for someone who had stolen it - and was already far too rich.
I think they would have fallen all over the place with tears of joy and laughter when they heard what happened to the rich fool.
Not only does he die, thus losing out on all the treasures he has stored up for himself. But God gives him a really hard time - in fact God calls him a ‘fool’ a harsh insult in Jesus’ time, especially coming from God. (Jesus threatens anyone who calls his brother a fool with hellfire.)
The people listening to the story would have raised their hands in the air and shouted “Amen!” to what Jesus was saying, the rich man will get his reward! (They would initially have heard exactly what they wanted to hear.)
They would have felt quite pleased until they remembered that Jesus had in fact been talking to them - responding to a dispute about money between some of them. Jesus had used their enemy’s behaviour to show them that they were just the same… there were arguments amongst them about money and dividing up the inheritance properly.
They were just as interested in storing up treasure for themselves as the rich man; and equally negligent of rather becoming “rich toward God” as the scripture put it.
* * *
In Jesus’ story the person who hoards up treasure for themselves without caring about becoming rich towards God is the fool.
* * *
The wisdom of Jesus’ day would have taught that a person blessed with such abundance should have shared it among others - in so doing they would have become richer towards God.
How can we - avoid being caught out as fools, and rather become “rich toward God?”
* * *
The good news - quite simply is this - that we are already in one way rich toward God - no matter who we are we are extremely valuable to God who loves us more than we can understand or imagine.
Our faith tells us, we read in the scriptures that God loved us so much that he sent his son to die for us so that whoever trusts in him can have eternal life.
Later on Paul an early leader of the church explains that it is as if God has bought us, paying the ransom with his own life; Jesus death on the cross and his resurrection shows us just how valuable we are to God, not because of anything that we have done, but simply because God’s love caused him to pay such a high price for us.
There is nothing we can do to make ourselves more valuable to God - we are all - already - as valuable - as - we - can be.
* * *
The question is rather; How can we live in a way that recognises the reality of this price which Jesus has paid for us?
How can we live in a way that reflects the truth that we are already rich - and extremely valuable towards God?
How can we live in a way that reflects the fact that our value as human beings is not found in our skills and qualifications, in the amount of money we have or are paid, in the amount of power we wield, in our popularity, in the sort of car we drive, or in any other sort of self gratification but rather, that our value as human beings is found in the simple fact that we are God’s beloved and adopted children?
* * *
The world we live in has switched the price tags around; our value system is mixed up. We’ve forgotten who’s we are, we have failed to allow God to be our God, and replaced God with things, with goals, with achievements, projects and people. Sometimes we have even replaced God with church…
We have pinned our own sense of worth to idols that can do nothing but let us down because they really do not care about us at all. We allow people’s opinions of us to determine our actions - we have allowed ourselves to be too easily upset by petty things because we have forgotten just whose we are.
Someone has been swapping the price tags around in our little worlds.
* * *
In Paul’s letter to the Colossians 3:1-17 Paul reminds us: “If you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above… not things that are on earth.”
He instructs his readers to “put to death the things of this earth: fornication, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed (which is idolatry)... to get rid of anger, wrath, malice, slander and abusive language…”
He reminds the often divided Church of his day - a church that was riddled with racism, classism and disagreements over doctrines and beliefs, that there is no longer Greek, Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and free - but that Christ is all - and in all!
Paul reminds us that when we recognise that our true value as human beings comes from the fact that Christ values us - then we will realise that our neighbours - yes, even the ones we dislike and the ones we disagree with also have Christ in them… (In spite of their differences to us and our differences to them, and in spite of the things that they have said to us that upset us - and all those relatively unimportant things that bother us…)
* * *
Jesus’ parable reminds us that we need to be rich toward God, and not peg our value on earthly things, on selfish gain…
Paul’s writing to the Colossians reminds us what a community of people who put Christ first; who allow God to really be their God will be like and will look like.
* * *
Because you belong to God, (Paul writes in Vs 12-14) clothe yourselves with compassion and kindness; be humble, meek and patient - Put up with each other.
If you have a complaint against someone, Paul tells us to forgive them - just as the Lord has forgiven you (think about that), you must also forgive them…
Clothe yourselves with love which binds everything in perfect harmony…
(This is God’s Word to us.)
* * *
So I ask, in the light of the scriptures that we have read today: What are they saying to us? How is God speaking to us through them?
Have we made Christ our Lord - being willing to forfeit all other pleasures for his sake?
Have we let the one true God - who is worthy of being our God really take control?
* * *
Have we as a community of Christians submitted ourselves to God, making Christ our one true head? Or do we submit to our own personal opinions, whims, tastes and desires without listening for God’s voice?
* * *
As individuals what gets in the way of our living like we belong to God? What gets in the way of our realising that our value as people comes from the fact that you are beloved and chosen by God?
Do we worry too much about the opinions of others?
Are we people who are reluctant to forgive?
Do we attach too much value to our qualifications, wealth, status, reputation, tasks, dreams and projects?
* * *
Like the foolish rich man have we built a tower around these things only to realise that one day our lives will be demanded of us and we will realise that we have lived lives that do not acknowledge our value in God’s eyes? We have been living with the wrong price tags attached to the wrong things.
* * *
I believe that when we as individuals; and as a community learn to live acknowledging Jesus Christ as Lord - as God… and not all those other things that distract us; then I believe we will begin to see the
Amen.
